Vehicle
by The Voice in the Wilderness
Summary: Kouga/Ayame. Songfic. Ayame needs a ride home and she gets one, eventually.


_All copywritten characters are the sole property of their owners and no infringement is intended; no money is being made. "Vehicle" is a song by Ides of March, used recently to sell the Pontiac brand of car here in the States, so I have Kouga driving one, granted - his has way more class than the ones being offered today._

_Hey well  
I'm a friendly stranger in a black sedan  
Won't you hop inside my car.  
I got pictures, got candy  
I'm a loveable man  
And I can take you to the nearest star._

"Hey girl, where ya going? Need a lift?", Kouga called to the school girl walking along the side of the road. The black 1971 Tempest growled down in low gear, sounding hungry to get back to eating down the miles.

Ayame had been afraid some pervert was going to stop and try to get her into his car if she walked home – but what choice did she have? InuYasha had just left her behind after she'd had to stay and clean the classroom, telling her he had to give Kagome a lift home. Damn that girl Kagome… the little bitch was just too friendly with her boyfriend for comfort. So of course, Ayame had been thinking all about it on her long, tedious walk down the side of the quiet road… leaving her mood something to be desired.

But this was just Kouga, sure – he had a great car but what else was there to him? There was nothing as foreign to a school girl as a guy who'd graduated the year she'd begun school. She'd noticed him a couple of times with InuYasha's older brother but he was gear-head and circled different stars than her own; always covered in grease or gas or paint; always on about power, torque and speed. So: why her and why now? She could give a shit about cars…

"Are you going to ignore me here or what? I'm offering you ride, Ayame – I'll take you anywhere you want to go.", Kouga barked over the large bench seat with half a smile.

Ayame stopped, pulled her red hair a little tighter in its tail to waste time and narrowed her green eyes at his pale blue ones.

"Why?"

"Why what? I can't just let you walk – some creep's gonna abduct you. Get in."

"Some creep in a real fast, black car?", Ayame pitched her distrust archly back at his wide open face. She couldn't see any evil wolf lurking behind those transparent eerie eyes, so what the fuck? It was a long walk and the sun was going to start going down fast. Autumn's chill had begun to descend into the dregs of the day.

"Oh ha ha – just get in already.", Kouga sneered at her joke and put the beast in park, leaning over to open the door.

Ayame couldn't help herself; there was something almost servile in the sight of the guy before her, bent down across the long seat, his long arm stretched out towards her in something like supplication. His white-wall eyes seemed to beg her to join him and something akin to surrender answered in the girl's taunt mind. When was the last time someone so openly and yet so subliminally _needed_ her?

Ayame couldn't remember and that made her curious. Curiosity moved her stubborn feet and once she wrangled the giant slab of a door closed, the over-used twitching in her legs and butt became apparent. Shooting a sidelong glance at the man next to her as he got them back onto the road slowly, the tired school girl found herself curious about a great many things, all of them suddenly Kouga-related.

Did he feel her eyeing him up; he must have because suddenly Ayame noticed Kouga was grinning hard at the road and she nearly had time to hear him give her a low laugh before throwing the black beast into gear and then she was being squashed into the seat by a loud roar of acceleration. Low, first, second, and then third; each gear threatening to shoot them into orbit. How fast were they now going? Kouga's eyes never left the road but something in his tight face spoke of a certain madness, an instinctive need for speed. Ayame found the sudden rush of adrenaline contagious and against her better judgment, she smiled at the whipping pavement as it was gobbled before her. It made her feel like she was flying away from a difficult decision and that was just fine.

'Where am I taking you?", Kouga's rasping voice interrupted her mental flight.

"Right here's fine, you maniac.", she smiled back to him and made herself comfortable on the wide seat, setting her bag between them.

Kouga glanced at the obstacle set between them and smiled. Those books were the least of his worries.

"No, really. Where am I taking you?"

"A couple of miles up on the left and then I'm pretty much home.", Ayame said without really thinking about stalling.

"Sounds good. Hang on.", Kouga grinned and took a hard right.

_I'm your vehicle baby  
I'll take you anywhere you wanna go.  
I'm your vehicle woman  
But I'm not sure you know  
That I love ya  
I need ya  
I want ya,  
Got to have you child,  
_

_Great God in heaven you know I love you._

"Where the hell are we going? I live that way!", Ayame jerked a finger at the intersection rapidly fading from view behind them.

"I'm going this way. Don't worry – you'll end up there. Come on, live a little.", Kouga narrowed his bombardier's eyes at the road with an evil yet somehow self-conscious grin.

It was the _somehows_ that were getting her! Ayame couldn't help but be curious; what was at the core of this seeming misfit next to her? Funny, she never wondered that about InuYasha – he just said he loved her over an over again and they both expected it to be enough.

They sat in silence for a while until the scenery started to elevate and drip down into wilderness all around them.

"You're driving towards the Gorge, aren't you?", Ayame asked, point-blank.

"Maybe.", Kouga evaded.

"Gonna murder me and dump my body in the river, huh? Boy, I'm sure glad some creep didn't abduct me or this evening would have really sucked.", she laughed with unintended bitterness. Until Kouga had picked her up, it really _had_ sucked. Now the evening was just weird… exciting… weird…

Taking his eyes off the road completely, Kouga gave her a very serious look.

"I would never do anything to hurt you, Ayame and I wouldn't have left you to walk home alone down a long empty road either. So quit thinking that right now."

"Fine. But why are we going this way then? I don't understand any of this.", she grumped to her window, fogging up the glass as they ascended the cool mountain air.

"Hey, I said, 'live a little' didn't I?", Kouga smiled and shifted down.

Her books slid into her leg with a thump as the car took a hard upward turn. Unthinking, Ayame put them on the floor beside her feet and slid closer to the center of the car, away from the sheer ledge she knew was outside of the flying car – closer to the driver currently trying to grind the gears of her lonely heart.

_Well if you want to be a movie star  
I'll get a ticket to Hollywood.  
But if you want to stay just the way you are  
You know I think you really should.  
I'm your vehicle baby  
I'll take you anywhere you wanna go.  
I'm your vehicle woman  
But I'm not sure you know_

"What do you want me to say? It's beautiful, but I did have homework and I'm sure-", Ayame sighed out, slamming the car door, mostly by mistake. The thing was so massive it took a lot to get it going but then it slammed if you didn't hang on. Cars…

"You're sure what?", Kouga challenged her, his long arms crossed over the roof of the ticking black beast, a serious scowl on his open, lean face.

"Nothing. What are we doing here?", Ayame backpedaled, looking every where but at the moon rising over the east side of the twilit wide gorge, shy to enter the night-fast shadows of the Cascades, There could be anything hiding in those deep shadows, and somehow, that deep anonymity was like security blanket – if only Kouga'd quit trying to pull it out from under her!

"I have something I need to pick up here."

There was a halo forming around the moon; icy rings circled and froze, just like her unsteady breath. Choices beaconed from all sides and frustrated her inability to do two things at once, Ayame resolved to ignore the voice in her mind, the one that begged her to soften her hard heart, to give a chance to someone trying so hard…

Her cell had never rang once… no one was worried if she'd made it home…

She stalked past Kouga, determined to get this thing over with fast so Ayame could get back to her nice, single-serving life. "What could you possibly need to pick up in an observatory at the top of a damn mountain…?", she growled under her breath, wishing she'd worn a sweater to school this morning.

The hand that grabbed her wrist and spun her awkwardly around was just as rough as she'd expected, but twice as warm. Pulling Ayame close to him, Kouga laughed into her wind-whipped red hair.

"Well, you, for one thing, Ayame…", the pale blue eyes over her head smiled down in endless kind amusement. Ayame found her heart had finally caught up with her brain and after a very short fight with her brain, decided to get back into that very fast car and let the driver take her anywhere she needed to go.

_  
That I love ya  
I need ya  
I want ya,  
Got to have you child,_

_  
Great God in heaven you know I love you._


End file.
